Insurance is a legal contract that transfers risk from a policyholder to an insurance provider. For a stipulated payment called the premium, the insurer agrees to pay to the policyholder or his/her designated beneficiary a defined amount upon the occurrence of a specific loss.

保险是一种合法的合约，把风险从保单持有者转移给保险的提供者（即保险人）。在得到约定的付款（保费）后，保险人同意在特定的损失发生时，支付一笔约定的金额（即保险金或保险利益）给保单持有者或其指定的受益人。

Insurance does not actually stop the loss from happening, but does indemnify or financially repay the insured a portion of the loss. Insurance is a device, which assists in changing uncertainty (loss) to certainty(premium). Insurance companies provide a risk management service to their consumers as well.

保险不能阻止损失的发生，但能从财务上补偿被保险人部分损失。保险是这么一种工具，把一种不确定性（损失）转换成了确定性（保费）。保险公司同时也为其客户提供风险管理服务。

To offset the possible effect of a loss（e.g. death）, all those at risk can contribute a relatively small sum of money (premium) to a fund (pool) operated by an insurance company. The many small sums of money people pay in premiums form a large pool of money. When a contributor to the pool suffers a loss there is enough money to compensate (indemnify) them.

为了抵消某种可能发生的损失(如人的死亡)的影响，所有面临此类风险的人可以向保险公司运作的一个基金（或“风险池”），贡献一笔比可能发生的损失小得多的钱款（保费）。许多人用于支付保费的小笔钱款汇聚成了一个大的基金。当参与者遭受损失时，风险池就有足够的资金用来补偿。

The result of co-operating with others in this way is that risks are 'spread' or 'shared' between the many people that have contributed to the insurance pool. For this reason insurance is sometimes said to be the 'pooling of risks'.

这种与他人互助的结果是，风险被分散在许多参与者之间，或由参与者共同分担。因此有时保险也被称为“风险的汇聚”